The Budgeting functionality in QAD Enterprise Applications lets you create budget structures manually in the application or import an Excel file using the Hotlink.

The Excel Hotlink option lets you maintain budget data in Microsoft Excel and then synchronize it with the system. The integration with Excel provided in budgeting is more advanced than that available in other functions.

Creating the Structure Manually in the Grid

To manually create a structure, right-click in the grid in Budget Create (25.5.1.1) to insert a new row.

Creating a Structure using an Excel Hotlink

To create a budget structure based on an Excel worksheet, click Excel Hotlink.

The Excel Hotlink menu is only available when the Structures tab is active; it does not apply to the data in other tabs.

The Create Excel Template and Create From Excel options are similar to the standard Excel integration. You use these when first setting up the budget.

Create the basic structure you want and then create an Excel template without defining the data. When you have completed the definition, you can upload the data using the Create from Excel option.

Linked spreadsheets can only contain the budget structure and budget data. You cannot create new COA links in Excel to import into and update a budget structure.

The menu has the following options:

Create Hotlink. Choose Create Hotlink to create a spreadsheet containing the budget topic structure and any budget values already entered. The first spreadsheet columns correspond to the topic names and are read-only. When you update a value in the spreadsheet, the corresponding value in the relevant column in the Structures tab is updated also.

You must run both Excel and your QAD application simultaneously to maintain the hotlink. You can save data in either the spreadsheet or the budget grid at any stage.

The system stores the spreadsheet file location for each budget. If you plan to share budget maintenance with other users, make sure the file is saved on a shared network drive so it is accessible to them.

Restore Hotlink. Use the Restore Hotlink command to open the spreadsheet associated with a budget.

Synchronize. Use the Synchronize option to replace the budget data in the Structures tab with data in the Excel sheet.

Create from Excel. Use this option to import data defined in a template to initialize the budget structure.